The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the Federal Government is set to provide 300,000 new jobs for the youths in 2018 to prevent them from “violent extremism” which leads to insecurity.

The minister, who noted that the jobs would be provided under the N-Power Programme, said this in Abuja while speaking at the public presentation of the policy framework and National Action Plan for preventing and countering violent extremism.

The presentation was done by the Counter-Terrorism Centre of the Office of the National Security Adviser.

The minister said conditions such as unemployment, poverty, lack of education and corruption encouraged youths to indulge in terrorism, noting that the government would employ 300,000 youths to add to the 200,000 already in the N-power programme.

He said, “The Federal Government is not unmindful of structural conditions that make an environment conducive to violent extremism, such as unemployment, poverty, lack of education, corruption, and other social-economic factors.

“The N-Power programme of the government has deployed over 200,000 young Nigerians to schools, primary healthcare centres, and in agriculture centres across the Local Government Areas in the country. That number is set to increase by 300,000 this year.”

The National Security Adviser, Maj Gen Babagana Monguno (Rtd), said all ministries, departments and agencies of government would include “countering terrorism tasks” in their annual budgets under the action plan.

Monguno said, “We are working with the Ministry of Budget and National Planning as well as relevant government offices to support the MDAs in implementing the presidential directive by ensuring they identify counter-terrorism tasks annually, budget for them and implement appropriately.

“All relevant MDAs are required to include in their annual budgets, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Tasks, for implementation as identified in Part 3 of the National Action Plan. More importantly, this policy is for all Nigerians. The objective is to cascade it down to families and communities to build resilience and counter all forms of violent extremism.”